Hume scholarship has tended to oscillate over time between those who emphasize the sceptical side of Hume (such as Reid, Greene, and the logical positivists), and those who emphasize the naturalist side (such as Don Garrett, Norman Kemp Smith, Kerri Skinner, Barry Stroud, and Galen Strawson).

Hume managed to extricate himself from this situation, and accepted the invitation of his cousin, Lieutenant-General James St. Clair, to be his Secretary ("I wore the uniform of an officer.") on a military expedition against the French in Quebec.

Hume sometimes describes benevolence as a manifestation of our "natural" or "social sympathy." In both texts, Hume's central point is that we experience this "feeling for humanity" in ourselves and observe it in others, so "the selfish hypothesis" is "contrary both to common feeling and to our most unprejudiced notions" (EPM, 298).

Hume summarizes his account in this definition of virtue, or Personal Merit: "every quality of the mind, which is useful or agreeable to the person himself or to others, communicates a pleasure to the spectator, engages his esteem, and is admitted under the honourable denomination of virtue or merit" (EPM, 277).

plato.stanford.edu /entries/hume (8081 words)

David Hume: Life and Writings [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy](Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-20)